Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its affiliates remain the sole property of Masashi Kishimoto.

Welcome to the first of (hopefully) many collaborations between Solitude Whispers, aka Winter Yuy, and Tanya Lilac. Enjoy.

Absolution

By Winter Lilacs

Sarcasm

Lee was someone in Konoha who was often undervalued. As a shinobi, some considered him incapable of subtlety. As a person, many labelled him as socially inept in more ways than one. Of course, though his team knew better, sometimes they chose to ignore the fact that he was more perceptive than they gave him credit.

And, lately, he'd noticed that Neji had been growing more sarcastic than usual. Lee had guessed that it was to be expected, what with some "out of town cousins" visiting, but when Tenten appeared to have caught the sarcasm bug, Lee began to wonder.

Take, for instance, a few days ago. Team Gai had met up at their old alcove, well before the summer heat struck the village. Neji was looking the slightest bit tired, and Tenten had only been too eager to take advantage of his delayed reflexes- or so she'd obviously hoped.

"Oh, Neji," she said sweetly, lounging casually on the bench, "you look tired. Go to bed past your bedtime last night?"

"Tenten," he replied tartly, and with just as much sarcasm, "you obviously missed a large portion of your beauty sleep."

"That's rich, coming from Mr. 'ten brushstrokes on this side, ten brushstrokes on the other'," Tenten replied, mimicking his voice.

"Oh, right," Neji rolled his eyes, "so you get to mock me, just because you don't have to bother with brushing your hair. How many split ends did you say you had, again?"

"Silence!" Maito Gai frowned. "I will not have such divisions on my team, amongst my youthful students."

Tenten and Neji both stood instantaneously and bowed their heads. She would have brought up the rivalry between Neji and Lee with another sarcastic quip, but thought the better of it.

With a sigh, Gai pulled out two pieces of paper with inky black characters scrawled across them and slapped them onto their backs. "Go into the forest and solve whatever problems you have," he said with an unusual sternness. "These seals will be activated if you move more than five meters apart from each other, or use chakra."

"What happens if they're activated?" Tenten asked quietly, suddenly humbled.

"They're exploding tags," Neji replied dully.

"Precisely," their teacher said, as sombre as they had seen him in a long time. "I wouldn't try taking them off, either."

As the two Jounin stalked off, Lee heard Neji mutter, "This is just how I wanted to spend my one day out of the house."

Tenten groaned, "Oh spare me the pain, great prodigy and bite me."

Lee smiled to himself. Perhaps sending them into the woods hadn't been the best way to solve this argument. Either way, Gai was not going to revoke his well deliberated "punishment"; it had worked many times before, in situations more severe.

Tenten grinned as she watched Neji disappear in the cool shadows of the forest, the dewy grass releasing their bitterly fresh fragrance. His footsteps faded, and she frowned. He couldn't have gone that far ahead. The seal on her back was reacting; it was tingling.

"Bastard," Tenten muttered as she began to run. Past the oak, birch and pine, she was finding it hard to sense where he was. Her heart was beating wildly and the cool air was chilling her sweat-

Suddenly, something came flying at her and shoved her roughly against a tree before she could even think to react. Her assailant was panting as heavily as she was, his smooth hands against her calloused ones as he pinned them above her head. His body was pressed up against her, his heart pounding in the same frenetic rhythm, his knee between her legs to make sure she didn't get any "smart ideas". He knew she could fight dirtier than most, given the right incentive. The kunoichi smiled meekly up into the silver eyes of the Hyuuga.

"I thought I was supposed to be the sleepy one," he murmured between breaths.

"You are," she replied breathily, slipping her hands out of his sweaty grasp and holding the kunai she'd hidden to his throat.

Neji met her gaze with one of his own, and she shuddered in spite of herself. Even though his eyes had been burning with passion last night, it still shook her to the core every time, that she was the one that he blazed for.

She dropped the kunai as he claimed her lips, smiling inwardly as his scent washed over her again. His hands ran down her arms and cupped her face delicately before moving to the clasps on her shirt, revealing the tender flesh of her neck. Suddenly, it was too hot to be wearing clothes; too hot to be doing anything other than-

"Shit," Neji groaned and pressed his forehead against her shoulder.

"What?" Tenten asked, more frustrated that his lips were not against hers to think of anything else.

"The tags."

Tenten smiled and groaned, leaning her head back against the tree. She sighed.

"Another time, then," she winked at him and ran her fingers through his hair.

Neji smirked, and kissed her collarbone, normally hidden by her shirt.

Tenten's eyes slid shut once again, and winced as she felt his teeth graze across her skin. Her eyes snapped open and she looked down at him.

"Holy fuck, Neji! What part of sarcasm don't you get?"

"I don't know," he replied smugly, kissing her collarbone delicately. "Maybe I was just too sleepy to understand." He bit her again and she made a small noise in the back of her throat. A whimper, Neji realised.

Of course, when Lee came to check up on them half an hour later, he didn't ask why their clothes were so rumpled, or why the colour in Tenten's cheeks was high, or why their skin had a sweaty sheen. He just hoped they were too distracted by whatever it was they had done to "reconcile" their differences to notice two slips of paper which had fallen to the ground at the forest's edge.